Counting to Five
by ronniekins77
Summary: Kate knows all she has to do is count to five when she's scared.


**A/N: **Written directly after the season 3 episode, _I Do_. I suppose that it is now AU. Enjoy anyway. :)

--

She has a walkie in one hand and the other she's using to clutch the bar of the cage. The rain is pouring down on her as she glances between Sawyer and Pickett even though she can barely see with the water in her eyes, and she's concentrating on Jack's voice at the same time, relieved to hear it but terrified of what he's saying.

He's telling her to run, that she has an hour's head start. To radio him and tell him the story he told her the day of the crash, the day they first met.

"I can't leave without you!" she shouts brokenly into the walkie talkie, and she's looking at Sawyer as she says it, because he has a gun to his head, but even more, to let him know as well that she's not leaving without Jack.

"Yes, you are. Go." His voice is so calm, yet so determined, and she knows he's not going to give up, not going to let her make this decision herself.

She breaks eye contact with Sawyer, her sole concentration on Jack's voice. "Jack, I can't," she tells him, her hand gripping the bar tighter, as if this will somehow keep her from leaving him behind.

"Go now," he says adamantly.

"I CAN'T!" she screams.

"DAMN IT, KATE, RUN!" he yells back.

Her chest heaves as her numb fingers let go of the bar and close around the walkie talkie wholly. Somewhere in the last minute, the walkie talkie has become her lifeline, simply because Jack is on the other end. She doesn't want to leave Jack in this place all alone, knowing he might be killed. She can't. She's run away from Jack too many times before and she won't allow herself to do it again.

"Kate," he says, in that voice of his that is so caring and so gentle that it makes her stomach roll over, "run."

And something inside of her snaps. Her entire life she has run. From the law, from her feelings, from everything she thought was too good for her. She's tried to fight that urge to run, but it has always taken over. And now, just when she is ready to stop running, he's telling her to. It is the single most scariest thing she's ever felt.

She looks over at Sawyer, who's staring at her hardly, and she locks eyes with him. She feels the rain hitting her skin so sharply she could be at a tattoo parlor right now, feels her heart sickeningly start to speed up.

And she begins to count. "One..."

_Did you ever use a needle?_

"Two..."

_Three days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over._

"Three..."

_If we can't live together, we're going to die alone._

"Four..."

_I have to know that you got my back._

"Five..."

_I'm not._

She and Sawyer spring into action at the same time. He punches Pickett and she elbows the guy behind her. He staggers back and Kate hits him in the face with the walkie talkie, making sure Jack knows she's running - and running for him. She runs out of the cage and she holds the walkie talkie up to her face as Sawyer continues to punch Pickett. "Jack, where are you?" she cries.

Before he can reply, Sawyer is pulling on her arm. "Come on Freckles!" he shouts, his hand slipping down wet skin to her hand, clasping it tightly.

And she runs.

--

Almost an hour has passed and she and Sawyer stopped holding hands a long time ago. They've been running non-stop and Kate's muscles feel as if they are being stabbed repeatedly. Her lungs are on fire and she feels like she is going to collapse at any moment. But still she runs.

When she doesn't have any more strength to continue, she steadies herself against a tree, running her hand over the bark as if to remind herself that she's still capable of feeling, that she's still alive.

Sawyer is looking at her with a confused expression as she collects her breath. "I have to radio Jack," she says through pants, sinking to the ground.

She radios him, closing her eyes and praying that he answers her call. "Jack," she repeats over and over until she hears him say her name. "Sawyer and I are safe," she says in a scratchy voice that sounds unlike her own.

There is a long pause before Jack says, "What story did I tell you? When you were stitching me up?"

Kate's eyes dart to Sawyer and he's staring at her unwaveringly. She can't read his expression, but she knows he's trying to process the fact that Kate had once fixed Jack, tried to heal his wounds, the same way she was always trying to do with him.

"You told me about your first solo procedure as a resident," she says, the memory filtering through her head in vivid color, as if it happened only an hour ago. "It was a on a 16 year old girl and you made it through thirteen hours. You were sewing her up when you ripped her dural sack."

"Yeah," says Jack quietly, and Kate can feel the tears start to well in her eyes. She can see herself on the beach with him, trying her damndest to sew him up, hoping that didn't royally screw up, and at the same time being captivated by him. By this stranger who was letting her in, telling her something that was so intimate and personal, trusting her with it.

"And then the membrane started spilling out of her like angel hair pasta," and she looks at Sawyer again, who looks a little bit queasy at this description, and she can't help but laugh through her tears. Jack doesn't laugh with her and she can feel the tension, even now, though they're seperated by probably miles.

"You got scared. The fear was so real to you. And you decided that you'd let the fear in, but only for five seconds. So you counted to five and went back to work. And the girl was fine."

"Right," says Jack calmly, his voice cracking slightly.

"And I told you that I would have run for the door," she continues, knowing that she doesn't have to say this part because she's already told him the story. Her tears are streaming freely down her cheeks now, making her skin itch, but she doesn't care. "You told me that you didn't think that was true because I wasn't running away from you then."

"Right," says Jack again and his voice is more distant now.

"Jack, where are you?" she asks him. "We can...we can come back and get you. Just tell me where you are."

"Don't," he says sharply and she wrinkles her forehead in confusion. "They won't do anything to me. As long as you're safe, I'm fine. Go back to the beach."

"Jack..."

But there is a clicking sound and Kate knows he's turned off the walkie talkie.

--

When she and Sawyer finally get back to the beach, it is Claire that sees them first. "Oh my God!" she cries, running up to Kate and giving her a hug. "Are you alright?" she asks and Kate wearily nods.

Soon everyone is surrounding them and after repeating that they are okay over and over and refusing to divulge what happened, Charlie says, "Where's Jack?"

Kate throws a look at Sayid and he tells everyone to go back to doing what they were doing, that what Kate and Sawyer really need now is rest. Locke nods and gives Kate a small smile, even though she can see that he is dying to know what the hell happened.

Sawyer reaches down and takes her hand in his and Kate sighs as they walk to his tent, still the same as it was before they were captured.

She falls asleep almost immediately.

--

She wakes up that night and finds that she is lying in Sawyer's arms. She breathes him in and hates herself because for a moment she imagines he smells like dryer sheets, alcohol, and mangoes, which is the combination of smells that she's always attributed to Jack. Kate removes Sawyer's arm from around her waist and sits up. She studies him for a minute or two and realizes just how different he looks when he's sleeping. He looks serene; the muscles of his face are relaxed, the lines in his forehead aren't looking at her with worry, and his breathing is slow and steady.

Kate has the sudden urge to be as far away from him as possible. She leaves the tent and walks to the edge of the shore. She stands there, sinking. She remembers doing this before, remembers telling Jack it was something she used to do with her mother, remembers him cracking a joke about it when she feared she had revealed too much information about herself.

She thinks back on the day before. Being seperated from Jack by glass, trying desperately to get him to do the surgery. Standing there, watching Jack become angry that the Others were using her against him, her hand pressed against the glass in an effort to connect with him, comfort him. Juliet leading her away. Climbing into Sawyer's cage in an attempt to get him to escape, not understanding why the hell he was giving up, why the hell he didn't just _run_. Him telling her that he wanted her to have hope. Kissing Sawyer, giving herself away to him. Making love to him in a cage, in the place where she felt the most trapped.

She wants to cry, but she can't bring herself to do so because she's cried so much today. All that she can feel is a deep pang in her chest, like her heart wants to jump out of her body. She had told Sawyer she didn't know why she had kissed him. Maybe it was because she thought he would die and she wanted to say goodbye. Maybe it was because she needed to act on the feelings for him that had slowly been growing over their time spent here. Maybe it was because he wanted to keep hope alive in her, the way Jack always did. Maybe it was because she wanted to connect with him, to comfort him in the way she hadn't been able to for Jack. To feel like maybe she wasn't totally useless after all and could fix something. Or maybe it was to try to ease her own pain. She'll probably never know.

Kate looks over at Jack's tent, watches the flaps blowing in the breeze, and steels herself for what she knows she has to do.

--

"What the hell are you doing, Freckles?" Sawyer asks her the next morning. She's wildly searching for something in his tent, tossing things around, and he'd been awoken by a book that landed on his stomach.

"Where are the rest of the guns?" she says, and it's not a question.

Sawyer sits up. "They're gone. The Others took 'em."

Kate doesn't say a word but dashes out of the tent. Sawyer follows her, calling out her name.

"Kate!" he yells. "You can't do this! You can't go back!" He tries to make her understand that it's too dangerous, that she might die going back to rescue Jack, that Jack told her specifically not to come back.

Kate doesn't listen, not even glancing back to acknowledge his prescence or the words he's saying, and he does the only thing he can think of to make her open her fucking eyes. He grabs her by the hand, pulling her roughly to him, and kisses her. It's passionate and desperate and he's trying to convince her to stay. He pulls away, cupping her face, stroking her cheek with his fingers. Kate takes two steps back, eyes never leaving his, trying to convince him of why she can't.

A few seconds later and Kate has barged into Sayid's tent. "Rousseau," she grits out, "does she have guns?"

Sayid looks bewildered. "Yes," he answers, but before he can get out anything else, Kate is pressing him with questions.

"Where is she? I need to find her, we need those guns. Where is she? Take me to her."

"Kate..."

"Sayid!" she snaps, the strain of her voice tired and broken.

So the three of them head out into the jungle, even though Sawyer's pretty sure that Sayid has no damn idea where he's going because he was drugged when the French chick took him hostage. What he does know is that he's never seen Kate look so determined, so focused. He imagines she was like this when she was on this run. Only this time, she's saving someone other than herself.

--

It's five days later when they come back from the beach, dirty, smelly, defeated. Kate's eyes are fixed on the ground, and she refuses to speak to anyone about their failed attempt to rescue Jack, and she walks right into his tent and stays there for two whole days.

On the third day, Sawyer finally approaches her and tries to get her to eat something. She does, and then she begins to sob, heartwrenching sobs that come from her gut, slicing their way up to her throat. He holds her as she cries and it's not the first time he's held her like this since they've been on the island, but Kate feels like a different person in his arms. He's not sure of how to ease her pain because he doesn't understand her anymore.

Kate sees his face in her head, hears his voice in her ears, but she can't bring herself to cry anymore. She can't even bring herself to think of his name, the way it rolled off her tongue so easily, as if she'd said it in a previous life a million times. She finds that she is unable to feel anything now except for numbness and she knows it's because she can't feel him anymore.

Sawyer's dimpled face and blue eyes manage to convince her to leave the tent for awhile, but the sun stings her skin and sound of the waves crush her eardrums. She sits in the shade of the forest, her eyes scanning the beach, resting on the people she's grown to care for in the past couple of months.

She watches as Charlie's lips brush softly across Claire's hair as she sleeps, how his whole body seems to jump when she smiles at him. She watches as Jin and Sun walk down the beach holding hands, whispering things in Korean that only they understand. But still Kate can't bring herself to feel anything - sadness, hope, jealousy, nothing.

It crosses her mind that perhaps she is shell shocked, suffering from post traumatic stress, but then she shrugs it off because if it weren't for him she wouldn't even know what that term meant.

--

When Sawyer tells her that she's been sitting by the trees too long, Kate moves to sit on the beach. She remembers sitting in the sand with him beside her, his brown eyes imploring, begging to know about her. She remembers constantly brushing him off, afraid that he might run if he knew the truth about her.

It is a little while before she notices that Rose is sitting next to her in the sand. The older woman has wrapped a blue blanket around her shoulders and holds a water bottle in her weathered hands.

Kate gives her a confused expression. Normally it is Sawyer who keeps her company, trying his best to lift her spirits. She cannot fathom why Rose, of all people, is with her now. As if sensing this, Rose smiles that all-knowing, hopeful smile of hers and says, "Jack will come back, Kate."

"How do you know that?" asks Kate, her voice cracking because she hasn't spoken in so long.

"Because, honey," Rose says, "soulmates always find each other," and she looks in the direction of Bernard before resting a hand on Kate's.

--

It takes Kate a few more days before she pulls herself out of isolation and everyone is happy when she does. She goes out with John to hunt boar and has long talks with Sayid about his military days. She fishes with Jin, takes walks with Sun, and babysits Aaron. She climbs trees and reads to Sawyer and laughs when Charlie tells her of a new song he's written ("Seeing Horses In The Jungle Doesn't Make You Crazy").

And her smile, well, it almost reaches her eyes.

--

When Jack comes back, it is Hurley who sees him first. Emerging from the jungle, he looks as tired as she's ever seen him and his body seems limp. The stubble on his face seems darker, his skin is pale from no exposure to the sun, and he walks with a slight limp, but Kate is so relieved to see him that her body starts to shake. She takes a step toward him, but stops when she sees Juliet walking beside him. Bewildered, she exchanges a look with Sawyer, then decides she doesn't care if Juliet is with him or not. It's _Jack_.

She runs up to him and throws her arms around him, emotion swelling in the center of her stomach. He smells of sweat, earth, and salt and Kate doesn't think she's ever smelled something sweeter. She pulls herself away from him quickly and then her hands are touching his face, his arms, his chest, checking to make sure it's really him. And then she's hugging him again, that feeling in her stomach rising up through her body and it's almost too much to bear. She wants to cry and laugh at the same time and for the first time since she returned, she actually _feels_.

Jack's arms wrap around her tentatively and they embrace for a few seconds before he pulls away. The smile on Kate's face falters when she sees that he isn't smiling and all of a sudden it's as if something is tugging on her heart, telling her that something is very wrong. It's the same feeling that she gets right before she runs, where everything inside of her sinks down to her toes and she can't breathe. She steps back from the tension between them, stronger tension than has ever existed between them before, and she doesn't know why it's there. "Glad you're back, Doc," a voice says from behind them and Sawyer extends his hand for Jack to shake. But Jack doesn't take it and his face darkens.

He looks from Sawyer to Kate to Juliet and walks away, heading in the direction of his tent. Kate watches him go and as he enters his tent, she stares up at Sawyer. He doesn't say a word, but she knows that they are thinking the same thing. _Jack knows_.

--

Kate tries to approach him. She runs up to talk to him when he's checking on Aaron. She waits outside the water trough, waiting for him to fill up a bottle. Each time she does, he walks right past her, as if she's not there and never has been.

She wants him to look at her, wants him to pay attention to her. She needs him to listen, needs for them to at least be on speaking terms.

But he's changed. He's darker and cold and withdrawn wherever she's concerned.

He's not talking to her, not acknowledging her, and it scares her more than anything ever has.

--

Everyone on the island talks about Jack's relationship with her. Juliet.

Kate sees the way Jack's face changes when he's around Juliet, the way his smile lights up his face; sees the way he touches her arm or raises his eyebrows suggestively. She sees him laughing when he's around her, sees him bashfully lower his head to the ground when she says something special.

And yet she still believes that she and Jack have a chance. If only she can get him alone, explain herself, tell him that she's sorry, they can get back to what they were before.

That faith is shot to hell when she's picking fruit in the jungle one day and comes across Jack and Juliet entwined together, kissing passionately, hands moving everywhere. Juliet's back is against a tree and Jack's shirt is off and Kate's heart drops to her toes and she feels like she's falling off a cliff with only the jagged rocks at the bottom to catch her.

She finds Sawyer in his tent and she attacks him, pinning him to the ground, just like in the old days. She doesn't stop to give him the chance to catch his breath, doesn't stop to look at the expression on his face. She tears off his clothes - angry, numb, desperate - and places his rough hands on her skin. In the back of her mind she realizes that Sawyer is confused, surprised, because they haven't done this since they first came back to the beach. But she doesn't care how he feels.

The whole time she imagines the long blonde hair to be short black bristles, imagines the dimples to be longer, imagines the naked chest to have soft patches of hair in the center, imagines the blue eyes to be dark brown and looking right through her.

Afterwards, Sawyer doesn't blame her.

--

He's chopping wood in the jungle when Kate finally corners him.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she says abruptly.

He turns around and looks her in the eye for the first time since God knows when. Kate stands firmly, her sneakers digging into the dirt, her face set with determination.

Jack opens his mouth to respond, but she doesn't let him. Her heart is racing and her hands are tingling and she knows if she doesn't say this now she never will.

"I'm so sorry for everything I've put you through," she says sadly. "I'm sorry for lying and I'm sorry for hurting you. And I'm so...so sorry for sleeping with Sawyer," and she's starting to sound like a convict asking for forgiveness as they walk to the electric chair as Jack stands perfectly still. She sees the muscles in his body are tense and his face is impassive because she can't read it anymore. And her whole body shakes as she says, "I'm sorry for running."

And then she's there, five feet away from him, cradling her head with her hands and fighting to control the sobs that erupt from inside of her.

When Jack's hands touch hers, pulling them away from her face, Kate feels a warmth that seems to spread throughout her, calming her. A warmth that she hasn't felt for ages. Just like last time, it's too much, way too much, and she reaches up to kiss him. She can almost taste mangoes as her lips nearly touch his, but he pulls his head away.

And he looks at her, drops his hands from hers, shakes his head in the way only he ever does and says, "I let you go, Kate."

--

Somehow things get back to normal. Kate finds that things between her and Jack are almost like they were before. They take walks through the jungle with Charlie and go on hikes with Locke and play poker with Sawyer and Hurley.

There are nights where they sit by the fire, just like they used to, simply talking. She can remember the talks before they were taken; talks of Jack's dad and the things they missed from back home. Whispered thanks for a sling and stories of Jack in medical school. Now Kate does most of the talking as she tells him of life on the farm and of life on the run. It isn't long before he tells her of his marriage to Sarah and how he got his tattoos. He doesn't shut her out, but he doesn't completely let her in.

There is no tension, no thoughts of what could be and what was, no sign that there was anything between them that was more than friendship.

But Kate holds on. She takes every smile he gives her and every word he says and tucks it away somewhere deep inside of her, where only she can hold it. With Kevin, she had a locket. With Tom, she had a toy airplane. With Jack, she has only her heart.

--

The sun is barely starting to rise when the Others come.

The sound of a bloodcurdling scream startles Kate from sleep and she doesn't recognize it, but she feels like something bad has happened. Like a goose has walked over her grave. She and Sawyer stumble out of the tent and Kate sees that Charlie, Locke, Sayid, and others have come out of their tents as well.

It only takes Kate a second to survey what is happening in front of her. Ben and a group of Others are standing outside of Jack's tent, all armed with guns. Juliet is next to Jack, holding onto his arm and looking terrified. Kate feels her stomach clench as she realizes that the Others have come for Juliet.

"It's your choice, Juliet," says Ben in a low voice, a small smile on his face. "Come back with us now or...well," and he lowers his smile to the ground, "you know."

Juliet exchanges a look with Jack and stares back at Ben. "No," she says.

In that moment, something washes over Kate. Something like heat, ocean water, and the sound of Jack's soothing voice. It hits her in the temples and travels through her veins and she starts to run. She doesn't know why and she doesn't understand it, but she runs toward the tent, toward him.

She runs as Ben lifts the gun. She runs as Jack pushes Juliet out of the way.

She's in front of Jack when Ben pulls the trigger.

Gasps shoot out of her like icy air as the force of the bullet causes her to spin around. Her mouth is open and she's clutching Jack's shirt as she falls down onto the ground.

Kate doesn't see Ben shoot Juliet. She doesn't hear Sawyer's scream or the sound of all hell breaking loose as her friends start a raging battle with the Others. She doesn't see the expression on Jack's face as he sinks to the ground with her, pushing away the dark hair from her face, cupping her cheeks, voice yelling her name, eyes welling with tears.

All has gone black.

--

When she comes to, Kate feels an unbelievable pain in her side. Jack is hovering over her, Sun at his side with medical supplies. Blood is all over his shirt and arms and it's all over her as well and oh God, it's hard to breathe.

"Kate! Kate! Kate, can you hear me?" Jack says forcefully, his voice breaking, and Kate blinks.

"Yeah," she says softly and even that hurts. Sun is softly touching her forehead and now Sawyer's arrived and he's saying that they're gone, that the Others are dead. And within seconds everyone is gathered around her and Jack.

"Back! Everybody needs to get back!" shouts Sun, standing up and stretching out her hands.

And now it's raining and all Kate can think about is when she stood in the rain, crying out his name because she was afraid.

Her hands seek his face, Jack's perfect face; the creases in his skin, the stubble on his face, two tiny scratches on either side of his face that he got from the crash that have almost healed completely. She feels his tears on her fingers, feels his breath on her cheek, and she closes her eyes.

"Kate!" he yells, and he shakes her a bit, and her eyes flutter open again.

She sees the look on his face, the wrinkles on his forehead, and she knows that he's terrified. "Let the fear in, Jack," she chokes out, and it's like a dagger is stabbing her with every syllable.

Jack smiles through his tears and begins to count.

"One..."

_You're not running now._

"Two..."

_It's okay. It's alright. It's alright._

"Three..."

_I didn't do it for him._

"Four..."

_I want the truth, just this once._

She clutches his arm, moves her fingers up to his shirt and pulls him closer to her.

She kisses him, presses her lips to his and feels him against her mouth. Salt, sweat, sweet and oh so heavenly mangoes. Flaws, brokenness, pain. Warmth, comfort, tenderness. _Jack._

Kate whispers, "I'm not sorry, Jack," and the tears spill down her face to mingle with blood and rain and her chest heaves with pain, "I'm not sorry for kissing you."

Jack says something to her and she can barely hear it, but it reaches her ears and vibrates to the very depths of her shattered body.

The words she's always been scared to hear, the words that had the power to stop her from running, the words that fixed her broken soul, healed her heart, and saved her.

Her eyes close because she knows that they - Kate Austen and Jack Shephard - will meet again.

"Five," she says, because it doesn't hurt and she's not afraid anymore.

_I love you._


End file.
